the blog of a bookish, nut-allergic girl

QUOTE: Neil Gaiman

“He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn’t occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.” ~ Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Written with the charm of Neil Gaiman’s brilliant wit, this quote puts into words something that I’ve experienced many times before but never knew quite how to explain. After reading these words, it dawned on me just how much I can relate to this. One event leads to the next, and before you know it your calendar is filled with tasks to accomplish and changes that have occurred.

For example, within the span of a month or so I graduated from high school, met my college roommate, and applied for (and got!) an internship. These are all pretty big events in my life so far, and I think that the confidence I gained from one helped result in the others. Graduating high school made me feel like I’m on top of the world, which gave me the confidence to come out of my shell a little and meet new people at college orientation. Because of that, I ended up meeting someone there and we decided to be roommates. Feeling confident in that aspect of my life, I then moved onto applying for a summer internship. The process of introducing myself so many times and talking to countless new people at orientation helped me feel more comfortable when interviewing for the internship and interning in general. The connection between these events isn’t always perfectly directly, but it’s there!

Any and every event in your life- no matter how seemingly insignificant it may be- can result in a chain of several events to follow. This is easier to see in hindsight, of course, but perhaps Mr. Gaiman has a point. He put this chain reaction of sorts into words- I wonder what events will come of them?

What do you think of this quote? Have you had any crazy experiences with events coming at you like no tomorrow? Have you discovered any quotes recently? Let me know in the comments section below!

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One thought on “QUOTE: Neil Gaiman”

YES. I relate to your interpretation of the quote so hard. This year has been a constant run of events that I feel as though the rest of my life had been pretty much useless in preparing me for this year. Gah.
Thing is though, when I first read that quote (I’m a Goodreads quote junkie) I thought about it in the more “sadder” emotional terms. Life-and-death events and how they seem to string together somehow. So many friends from school had lost someone close to them around two years ago, there were also many deaths in my extended family and it just felt like “Death Season” simply because normally y’know, these isolated events were just that: isolated. That it all comes up to you at once is a new phenomenon and it is comprised of both the emotionally taxing events and the to-do nightmares and various other complications.
It’s freakin’ hard, but hey being busy is cool. It might not feel like it, but I hate waiting for things to happen…I’d much rather get up and do something, y’know?